


If The Apocalypse Comes, Summon Me

by Anti_kate



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Brief Kissing, Brief canon-typical violence, Buffy/Good Omens crossover, Crowley’s black nail polish headcanon, Into the Buffyverse, M/M, Metaphysical nonsense, Summoning how does it work, What does it mean to be good, only a little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:48:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: “What’s to stop me from killing you all the second you let me out?” He says, low and dangerous now.She steps closer, right to the edge of the circle, and they’re very close, separated only by air and magic.“You’ll be stuck here forever,” she says, simply. “But if you help us, we’ll get you back where you came from. Home.”The Buffy/Good Omens crossover no-one asked for (but I wrote anyway).Crowley is summoned to another dimension, which happens to be Sunnydale? I don’t know either. It was mainly an excuse for me to write about my two favourite disaster demons.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 67
Kudos: 351
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations





	If The Apocalypse Comes, Summon Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in roughly late 2000, early in Buffy Season Five, and before Crowley and Aziraphale end up at the Dowlings. 
> 
> Than you so much to PearlWaldorf For beta-ing this and encouraging me to write such a daft thing.
> 
> You can find me at [deeply-inessential](https://deeply-inessential.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and yell at me about black nail polish and punk music.

Crowley has been summoned before, plenty of times. It’s practically an occupational hazard for the only demon stationed permanently on Earth, and sometimes it’s even a bit fun, a way to liven up a dull weekend.

But usually, it only happens once every decade or so, not twice in twenty minutes. And it’s always a zippy instantaneous thing, so being sucked through a Space Odyssey metaphysical tunnel then spat out on a hard concrete floor some indeterminate amount of time later is a bit of a shock. 

But here he is, sprawled on the floor of what seems to be a warehouse, his head spinning and ears ringing.

Just moments earlier he’d been toying with a bunch of teenagers in Swindon who’d summoned him on what appeared to be a lark. They hadn’t even asked for money or immortality or hot and cold running sex or whatever it was people thought was worth selling their souls for. 

They’d thought it was funny. At first. 

So Crowley had been scaring them enough to make sure they didn’t try it again and call up someone like Hastur. Or, even worse, Crowley himself (again) when he was halfway through a bottle of red and trying to watch The Golden Girls. 

The kids responsible for the first summoning had followed all the instructions to the letter but Crowley had, over the centuries, deliberately made sure all the popular demonic texts were wrong enough that he could escape before anything dire happened. (He’d learned that lesson the hard way back in the 15th century when he spent three months in a leaky shed in rural Scotland refusing to take the soul of a cow herder.) 

He was just stringing them along, really, putting on a show — hissing and spitting, his teeth growing long and pointed, skin mottling with scales — when everything went _whoosh._ And now here he is, wherever _here_ is, head splitting, limbs like over-cooked noodles, and the terrible sense that something is missing.

It takes him a moment to understand what it is — an absence. A lack. An emptiness. Crowley always knows where he is. He has a perfect internal sense of the world, a map of it all in his head, and there are usually two pins in it. One is his own location, and the other is the angel. But the map is gone, he doesn’t know where he is, and more importantly, he can’t feel Aziraphale. 

He sits up with a jolt. He’s in, yes, another bloody magic circle, and there are more teenagers assembled beyond it, staring at him. 

But this circle feels more like a cage.

He jerks himself to standing and then hits the edge of the circle both with his body and with his powers. Absolutely nothing happens, except he staggers back, as if he’s just walked into a closed door. 

It’s not a cage. It’s a bell jar, smooth and impenetrable.

There’s chalk writing on the concrete floor around him, in some language he doesn’t know. He can tell it’s a magical language, but it’s not legible to him, which should be impossible. He knows all the languages of the occult. He even invented a few of them.

“What the absolute bollocks is this,” he hisses. Where the fuck is he, and where the fuck is the angel? He is trying not to panic, but he _can’t feel Aziraphale._

“He doesn’t look much like a great power capable of defeating an ancient necromancer to me,” a voice says. American. A diminutive blonde girl. She’s tiny but there’s something about her that immediately makes Crowley want to slither off and find a nice dark hole to curl up in. She’s dangerous, and she’s watching him the way a lioness might look at a gazelle. 

Beside her are two other girls, and he can tell straight away they’re witches. First of all, they’re dressed like they’re on their way to some naff Ye Olde Middle Ages costume party, all dangly sleeves and awful jewelry, and only girls who want to be witches dress like that, and secondly... they feel powerful, too, but in a different way from the blonde. 

One of them has red hair and she’s practically alight with magic, real magic, an aura that surrounds her in a way Crowley has only seen a handful of times in his long existence. She’s got a glowing orb in one band. The other, softer looking, standing back, isn’t as bright, but she’s still got a current of _power_ running through her. They’re holding hands. 

He looks over the others. 

There’s another girl, bobbed hair, a clever face. Two human boys, one with dark hair and a particularly stupid expression, and the other built like a brick house and radiating peculiarly American wholesomeness. 

And then an older man. No, not a man. A demon. But he’s all wrong. His body is the same temperature as everything else, his heart isn’t beating. He’s a corpse, except he’s not.

Crowley tilts his head and stares, curiosity overcoming his fear. He’s something Crowley’s never seen before, and Crowley has seen just about everything. 

He’s also a rather tragic Billy Idol wannabe, bleached blonde hair, black leather coat, black nail polish. Which, ok, yes Crowley is also wearing a black jacket and black nail polish. But he’s doing it with style. 

“Oi, Billy! What are you?” Crowley says. “You’re a demon, right? But I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

“Oh, he’s a vampire,” says the girl with the bob. 

“Vampires aren’t real,” Crowley replies automatically. He should know, he’d spent a decade in the 18th century in a ghastly old ruin in Eastern Europe terrifying the peasants and pretending to be a bloodsucking countess. It’d mainly been an excuse to wear some decadent gowns.

The demon snarls. His face changes, becomes heavily ridged, and his eyes go bright yellow, and he’s got a set of fangs on him all right. Nothing compared to Crowley’s of course. 

“Real enough for you, Mick Jagger?” The demon growls.

“You could be doing that with mirrors. Can you actually suck someone’s blood?”

“Oh, he can’t drink blood, he’s got a chip in his head that stops him from hurting humans. He’s basically our pet vampire now,” the girl with the bob says, and the demon wheels on her angrily, almost spluttering, but the blonde holds up her hand, commanding instant silence.

“Anya, Spike. Not now. Willow, is this the great power that can defeat Ataxya or not?” The blonde asks. 

The red-head witch is doing something with the glowing orb. “I don’t know, Buffy. Something strange happened. It’s not right. I don’t know what he is.”

“I can already tell you he’s a wanker,” the demon mutters, his face shifting back to human.

So. An alleged vampire. Real witches. An infernal alphabet he can’t read. A summoning circle he apparently can’t escape. And that blonde girl. 

He grins at them all, trying to think, trying to formulate a plan, and swaggers around the limits of circle, trying to project an air of unworried confidence. He’s not entirely sure it’s working. 

“I think,” the redhead girl says, cautiously, “I think we should send him back and try again. I think he’s something we really shouldn’t be messing with. Like… he’s not meant to be here.”

“Oh I like you, you’re clever,” Crowley says, and he drops his glasses so they can all see his eyes. That doesn’t elicit much reaction at all, so he lets go of his human form, and becomes a giant snake, just for a moment. Then he shifts back.

None of them run away screaming or start sobbing, which is surprising. The dark-haired boy lets out a theatrical groan.

“Not another snake demon. This is, like, the fourth one. What is about demons and snakes? Why is it never cute little fluffy bunnies--”

“Xander!” Bob-girl snaps. “That’s not funny.”

A part of Crowley is intrigued by how _much_ they don’t care about the fact that he’s a terrifying demon who can turn into a giant snake. 

“Buffy,” the red-headed witch glances up worriedly from the orb in her hands. “I think... I think he’s from another reality. Like Vamp Willow was. I think I made some mistake with the spell and pulled him here by accident.”

Another reality.

Crowley feels almost dizzy with dismay, but he’s had a lot of practice in tamping down those feelings and putting on a calm exterior. Surely this is no more terrifying than his millennial performance review with Satan. 

Well. Except. He’s in some alternate reality. That’s why he can’t feel Aziraphale.

He’s clenched his fists so tight his fingernails are almost shredding his own skin, and he unclenches them with conscious effort. 

The blonde girl is still watching him.

“No. He has to help us. We must have summoned him for a reason. The prophecy of Ataxya was clear. We summon a great power, it helps us destroy her. Whatever he is—“

“I’m a demon. Very powerful,” Crowley says. “But I’m not in the business of helping people. So how about you just... reverse your little summoning spell, and send me home, before I turn you all into maggots.”

She shoots him a look of pure, weapons-grade contempt. She knows he’s bluffing. And he shouldn’t have said _home,_ that was giving away too much. “Go ahead.”

There is a long stretch of silence, and finally she smirks at him.

“See, I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate. But I’m feeling generous. If you agree to help us, we’ll send you back.”

“Buffy,” the strange, cold demon interrupts. “You can’t just make deals with random demons plucked from wherever, it’s suicidal—”

“I know I’m going to regret saying this, but I think Spike’s right,” tall muscular and wholesome says, putting a possessive arm on the blonde girl’s arm. The demon grimaces at the sight and Crowley feels an undercurrent there. Jealousy. 

The blonde girl is watching him, again, and he watches her back. She’s the boss of this group. Charismatic and deadly. 

“We’ll send him back where he came from, after he helps us,” she finally says, firmly. None of them argue. 

“What’s to stop me from killing you all the second you let me out?” He says, low and dangerous now.

She steps closer, right to the edge of the circle, and they’re very close, separated only by air and magic. 

“You’ll be stuck here forever,” she says, simply. “But if you help us, we’ll get you back where you came from. Home.” Then she looks at the witches. “We can do that, can’t we Willow?”

“Uh huh. I mean. Yes. I think so. Definitely probably,” the redhead replies, in a way that does not fill Crowley with confidence.

Home. He thinks, helpless to stop himself, of Aziraphale in the bookshop. Well. Worth one more try. 

He adjusts his glasses on his face, snaps his fingers and throws all his powers against the circle, and again nothing happens, nothing at all. 

He really doesn’t have a choice but to cut a deal with them.

“All right, _Buffy._ I’ll help you, if you send me home.” he says, begrudging.

She nods. “And what do we call you, then?”

“Crowley.”

With that, the witches lower their magic and he is out of the circle. 

The instant he steps over the sigils, the sense that he had that this wasn’t where he belongs becomes certain knowledge. It’s all wrong, the air tastes wrong, everything is slightly the wrong colour. He feels metaphysically jetlagged. 

And Aziraphale’s absence is a missing limb. He has to get home. 

(He also wants to go somewhere and get drunk and sort through the cosmological implications of this whole thing. But first, he has to get back where he belongs.)

They’re all watching him, warily, but without fear. They’re not messing around, unlike the kids who summoned him back in the other world, the _real_ world. 

He straightens his jacket, and then solemnly shakes hands with Buffy. Her hand dwarfed by his, but again he feels her power. 

She’s not angelic, not exactly, but she’s touched somehow. Holy, he thinks. Yes, she’s a holy blade, and she’d cut him down in a moment.

Then she turns away from him, and begins snapping out orders at the others.

“Willow, Tara. Take him to the Magic Box. Riley, Xander, Anya, you come with me. As soon as we get a sighting on Ataxya we’ll call you,” she commands, and amazingly, everyone just does what she says. “And Spike. Keep an eye on him.”

The vampire rolls his eyes and Crowley feels some sympathy for the poor sod. 

They walk out of the warehouse into a warm night, and into Spike’s car, which is black and low-slung and finned. It’s not the Bentley, but it’s nice. Crowley stops and admires it for a second.

“You like cars?” Spike says.

“A bit, yeah.” 

“What do you drive then?”

“Bentley. 1933.”

At that Spike makes a scoffing noise, turning the key. “Posh bastard.”

The sound system immediately begins playing The Buzzcocks _Ever Fallen In Love._

“Always preferred The Slits myself,” Crowley mutters.

The vampire just turns the music up. 

“I think this is some sort of demonic flirtation,” the quiet one says to the redhead.

“He wishes,” Crowley says, and the vampire makes a disgusted noise.

They drive through a not-very-big town, and Crowley can smell the ocean, but he refuses to ask where they are. Somewhere in America, on a coast; what else does he need to know? They’re going to do defeat some terrifying demon and then he’ll go home. 

They arrive at some little crystals-and-tarot-cards shop on the town’s small high street, and the shop’s owner is an older man wearing glasses and a three piece tweed suit. Giles, apparently, and he splutters at the witches for a few minutes after the redhead — Willow — explains what happened.

“So you tried to summon a great power — which I expressly said was a terrible idea — and you got ... this?” He waves dismissively at Crowley with one hand. 

“That’s a bit rude,” Crowley says mildly, inspecting the artefacts in the shop. Most of them aren’t actually occult, but a few of them glitter with dark power. He picks up something he doesn’t recognise — a weird statuette of a lion-headed person — and it zings with potential. 

“Hey, did you know this is a cursed thingy? You shouldn’t really leave it lying around where anyone can touch it.” 

“Of course I know that,” Stodgy-glasses-man takes it from his hand and puts it down carefully. “It’s the Statue of Leonidas. Very powerful. And not for sale. And I will indeed lock it up tomorrow.”

“Right. You got a phone, mate?”

Glasses distractedly directs him to a cluttered back room, and continues ranting at the witches. Spike follows him and stands in the doorway, watching. 

“Can I get some privacy here?” Crowley snaps.

“No. Who are you calling? You’re not from this world, you don’t know anyone,” Spike responds, crossing his arms. “Unless that was all bullshit.”

“Listen. You’re right to be suspicious. Very sensible. But I just want to ... confirm something, for myself,” Crowley says tiredly. “No funny business, I swear.”

Spike narrows his eyes, but nods. “Fine. But try anything, and I’ll snap your spine.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Crowley mutters, and he picks up the phone. Even though he already knows, fundamentally, that it’s pointless, he dials Aziraphale’s number. 

There are the clicks and buzzes of an international call and it rings a few times before someone answers. 

“Hello, this is the Golden Cod, Best All Night Fry Up in Soho. What’ll you have?”

“Is this... a chippy?” 

“Yeah mate. What’s your order?”

Crowley hangs up without responding. Spike raises an eyebrow but says nothing. 

Then Crowley dials another number, this time, it goes to an answering service.

“Hell’s Kitchen dry cleaners. Our opening hours are 7am until—”

He hangs up again, and stares at the phone.

He can’t feel Aziraphale. But he can’t feel hell either. There is no constant, subterranean pull of the infernal below him. So, he’s going to assume there is no hell here, or maybe there’s a different one. But not his hell. No Beelzebub. No Hastur. No Satan. No orders. No Great Plan. 

And maybe that means... no end of days, rushing down the line. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get back, he thinks for just a second, but the impulse is fleeting and immediately floods his mouth with the taste of shame. Because Aziraphale is _alone_ back in their world, where time is circling inexorably closer to the end of all things, and Crowley can’t abandon him. 

Not that he’s given it much thought, except for obsessively over thousands of years, but he’d always assumed they’d face it together, somehow. When the end comes, they’ll still be on opposite sides, yes, but he always imagines himself on some blasted field, holding out his hand to Aziraphale, who will finally take it. 

Sometimes he imagines heaven winning, and the angel ending him with the flaming sword. A mercy killing. 

And sometimes he imagines hell winning. That’s even worse, because the denizens of Hell have _plans_ for the angels. It’s a regular topic of bored conversation down there, torturing angels. And Crowley won’t let that happen. That’s usually when his imagination fails, when he pictures himself summoning hellfire, when he’s looking into Aziraphale’s eyes, when everything is lost. 

He rubs his fingers over his eyes, and does his best to pull himself together. He and the vampire walk back out to the shop. The three humans are sitting around a long table, deep in a conversation that stops abruptly when he and Spike approach.

“Got anything to drink?” Crowley asks Giles.

The man yanks his glasses off and polishes them furiously on his sweater vest. “Do you drink blood or—“

“Of course I bloody well don’t. Whiskey? Wine? Horrible American beer?”

“I have whiskey,” the man says stiffly, and returns in a moment with two tumblers.

“Oi, where’s mine?” Spike glowers.

“You know what you did, Spike.” 

“Did you forget to record Passions again?” The redhead witch and the other girl grin at each other. They’re definitely a couple, and he likes them despite himself. They’re ... his mind supplies the word sweet, which he rejects. They’re deadly witches who stole him from his own dimension. There’s nothing sweet about them. Except that they are, their hands in constant contact, their bodies leaning towards each other. Sickeningly sweet.

“So how is this... person... going to help us defeat Ataxya then?” Giles asks, eyeing Crowley sceptically.

“That, Giles, is an excellent question. What can you do, snake boy?” Spike sneers.

Crowley takes a sip of the whiskey, and considers the four humans looking back at him. He feels like one of Aziraphale’s beloved stage magicians, Houdini or Maskelyne maybe, being expected to wow a crowd with some dazzling tricks. He wonders how they’d feel about a quick presentation about the dread symbol Odegra. Probably wouldn’t go down well.

Instead, he does two things at the same time — unfurls his wings, and summons a spark of hellfire, so it hovers it above his hand.

The four of them are immediately on their feet. 

“I can light fires and fly. And turn into a snake. And...” he extinguishes the hellfire with a wave of his hand. “A few other things.”

That’s when he snaps his fingers and everything vaguely breakable in the shop shatters, all the windows explode outwards, everything in all the cabinets smashes to powder (with the exceptions of the things that are actually powerful, Crowley’s not that stupid), even the bottle of whiskey and the tumblers on the table, and the humans all fall to the ground, as does the vampire. 

“What did you do?” Giles yelps. “Why do demons always want to destroy my things?”

Crowley gives a humourless grin and snaps his fingers. Almost everything is back to how it was before, instantly. The whiskey is back in the tumblers and in the bottle on the table. The trinkets and knick knacks on the shelves are all returned. The only thing missing is every single copy of Aleister Crowley’s books. Crowley is still annoyed at him for _everything._

“Anything else?” He says, casually. 

“Bloody show off,” the vampire mutters.

* * *

The necromancer Ataxya turns out to be a terrifying creature, with vivid, sickly purple skin, massive horns, and teeth like actual razors, who has surrounded herself with an army of animal and human corpses. 

Crowley’s never seen anything like her. Plenty of demons talk big about their powers, but in reality most of them are content to skulk around the Plains of Dis, and any massive incursions like this would call down an equal and opposite reaction from heaven. 

And most of the demons Crowley knows, with notable exceptions, are just doing their jobs. They torment some souls, do their filing, and wait miserably for the end. They’re not megalomaniacs like this creature. 

(He suspects she doesn’t have to file regular reports to hell about her infernal actions. She doesn’t seem like the paperwork sort.)

They’re in some sort of cavern under the city — they had to go into the sewers, and Crowley is sure his boots will never be the same, demonic miracles or no —and the necromancer is a glittering flame in the darkness. She’s all mad cackling laughter and tedious monologuing about how they won’t be able to stop her and she’s going to use them all as toothpicks, and when Crowley sees none of the humans are listening to her, he doesn’t either.

Crowley watches with some interest as the big American farm boy and the vampire jostle to try to protect Buffy from the animated corpses. Buffy, as far as he can tell, needs very little protecting at all. She’s like a minuscule James Bond, fighting the corpses without breaking a sweat. 

Crowley watches with something like awe as she and her boyfriends take out a swathe of the zombie creatures. Even the other humans are doing a serviceable job of it, so much so that he isn’t doing anything, just watching

And then Ataxya spots him, and in the midst of the fighting the force of her gaze is like a bolt of lightning. 

“You!” She roars, her voice booming over the commotion, pointing straight at Crowley. She weaves forward on her long, deer-like legs, a few steps closer, her zombies falling back behind her, the fighting coming to halt. 

He sees, behind her, more and more of the creatures, rotting corpse after rotting corpse. Despite their bravery, their fierceness, it won’t be long before Buffy and her friends are overwhelmed.

But they’ve got him. 

“Hi,” he says, giving the terrifying demon a little wave. 

“You are... different,” she thunders.

“I’m from out of town.”

“No.” She draws herself up. She’s a good three metres tall from horns to hooves. Lighting sparks around her. “You’re from another plane. You’re... so strong. Like nothing I’ve seen before.”

He sees, in the corner of his eye, Buffy hefting the large axe she’d bought along. He’d thought it ludicrous until actually he’d seen her use it.

“Join me,” the demon says, low and seductive. “We could drench this world in blood. We could rule it and all its hells. We could command an army of the dead, together, and make all these tiny creatures our slaves, and we can feast on entrails until the sun burns out.”

“Tempting,” Crowley says.

Buffy turns a horrified look at him.

“But... nah,” he adds, and then he snaps his fingers, and time stops for everyone except for him and the girl and her friends. 

“Go on then,” he says encouragingly.

Buffy stares at him and the zombies, all frozen, and the demon herself, caught mid-declamation.

“What have you done?” 

“I stopped time,” Crowley says, walking up to one of the deer zombies and prodding it with his foot. “Satan, that’s horrible. It’s all sticky.”

“You stopped time?” The redhead witch looks at him with something rather like religious awe. “That’s impossible.”

Even Spike is gaping at him.

“Look. It’s a thing, I can do it, it doesn’t last that long, you should stop making that guppy fish face at me, and chop her head off.”

At that, Buffy gives herself a little shake, runs up to the demon, swings, and decapitates her in one smooth movement. It’s very impressive.

He snaps his fingers again and time flows around them once more. All the animal corpses collapse on the spot, and the demon goes up in a bright sizzle of sulphur blue flame before disappearing entirely.

“Well, she was a bore,” Crowley says, dusting off his hands. “Can we get out of this sewer now please?”

* * *

They trudge back up out of the underworld and he can see how tired they all are. Soldiers, exhausted from battle. Quiet now. 

“Do this a lot, do you?” He says to Buffy as they walk. 

“Every damn week,” she replies, grimly. 

“What are you?” He asks her then, finally too curious to pretend to be uninterested anymore. 

“I’m the Slayer,” she replies, as if it means something. 

“Who’s that when she’s at home?”

“You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

“Obviously you slay things—“ he gestures behind them, where Ataxya’s corpses lie on the ground. “Monsters.”

“Yeah. Monsters. Vampires,” she says. “And demons.” It’s not a threat, but it could be.

“One girl, the chosen one, she alone fights forces of darkness, blah blah,” she continues. 

“That sounds like a lot, for one girl.”

“Because I’m a girl?” She bristles at that.

“No, because that sounds like a lot for anyone, fighting the forces of darkness all alone.”

She looks at him, her expression unreadable. And then she gives a small smile, and looks around at her friends. 

“But I’m not alone,” she says. 

* * *

Crowley was hoping that they’d go straight from fighting the demon and the zombies and get into the magic circle business again. It turns out, however, that the witches need to rest, and then gather some supplies, and for best results the reverse-summoning needs to happen at midnight. 

“And I need some sleep,” Buffy says. “Then I’ve got to take Dawn to the mall, or Mom is going to murder me. Spike, why don’t you take Crowley and... I don’t know, give him a tour of your crypt.”

Spike just nods at this, seems less inclined to give anyone lip than he has since Crowley had arrived. He seems almost thoughtful. 

“Better idea,” the vampire says when they go to his car. The sky overhead is lightening, and he looks at it warily. That’s right, vampires have a deadly sun allergy. “We’re going to Willy’s Place and we’re going to get drunk.”

Even though it’s probably somewhere around 5am, Willy’s Place is open, and full of Bela Lugosi-style monster-of-the-week demons. Horns, scales, tails, the works. Crowley tries not to stare but there’s one with three heads. 

There’s certainly more variety amongst these demons than the repetitive uniform of pustulant weeping sores, unpleasant smells and animal headgear of the denizens of his own world.

Spike orders whiskey for them both and also a pint of O negative for himself, which comes with a straw and a little umbrella. 

They sit and drink, without speaking, for a while. 

Blink 182’s _All The Small Things_ is playing through the bar’s speaker system and Crowley snaps his fingers and it’s David Bowie’s _Golden Years_ instead.

“Hey,” one of the demons yells. “Willy, change it back, I was listening to that.”

Crowley sighs and takes another large mouthful of whiskey. There’s more sitting and drinking and not talking, which is fine.

“You can take your glasses off here,” Spike says abruptly. 

Crowley just regards him flatly, and leaves them on.

“So, ok, snake boy. Why didn’t you take Ataxya up on her offer?” The vampire waves to the bartender for another round of whiskey. “The things you can do. You can... stop time... you could rule this world. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of shit.” 

Crowley has shredded his coaster into tiny pieces, and under his fingers it becomes whole again. “I’m sure you have.”

There’s another stretch where neither of them speak.

“Things... operate differently here, but not that differently,” Crowley finally says. “Tell me Spike, you ever heard a demon band, a good one?”

“Course not,” Spike says. “Demons are rubbish at music.”

“Right,” Crowley takes another swallow. “And this whiskey ... You ever had a whiskey made by a demon? What about a car built in a demon factory? Seen any good demon movies lately? Ever been for dinner at a demon restaurant? Imagine a world full of nothing but demons, ruled by demons. It would be,” Crowley takes another drink, “an utter shithole.”

Demons don’t create things, they both know this. Demons are plagues and noonday darknesses and chaos and buzzing flies. They are unmakers. 

Spike gives him an appraising look. “Yeah,” he finally mutters. “Never really understood the appeal of the whole end of the world, seas of blood thing. Not much in it for a bloke like me.” He waves the bartender back for another round. “You’re paying for these, right?”

Crowley snaps up an American $100 bill and drops it on the bar. “Sure. My treat. Anyway. I like the world. It’s fun. Well. I like _my_ world. Not sure about this one. Bit of an infestation problem.” He surveys the assortment of demons in the bar. 

Most of them are just drinking, a couple are chatting, there’s a pair apparently having a snog, or doing _something_ Crowley assumes is affectionate with their tentacles, anyway.

Up the back, some of them are playing poker, and they appear to be using kittens instead of cash.

“Anyway, if I did stick around, your Slayer would figure out a way to kill me in a week.”

“She’s not my anything,” Spike spits.

“Really? So why are you hanging around like her little pet?”

“I have a chip in my head which means I can’t hurt humans. I’m fair game now to any bastard with a pointy stick. If I’m with her — with _them_ — well, it’s protection.”

Crowley grins. “That’s bollocks and you know it.”

Spike glowers, but it’s half-hearted. “I can still hurt demons, you know.” Then he sags on his stool. “Anyway, she’s with Riley. She likes good boys. And I am not good.”

Crowley has had enough whiskey now that he’s feeling sage and expansive. “No-one’s really good,” he says, beginning to shred the coaster again. “Or really bad.”

“I’m bad,” Spike says, proudly. “I’m a ... mass murderer. Lost count of how many people I killed a few weeks after I got vamped. William the Bloody, that was what they called me.”

That seems hard to argue with, but Crowley is good at playing the devil’s advocate. “Sure. That’s bad. But. Last night you stopped a power-crazed demon from taking over your world and turning everyone into zombies. So that’s good. S’balance.”

“Shut up.”

“And being good isn’t about what you are, it’s not some inherent thing, it’s about what you do,” Crowley continues, warming to his theme. “You do things, and those things are what define you, not whether or not you’re... pure on the inside, or whatever.”

Spike snorts at that. “Furthest thing from, mate.”

“And,” Crowley says, “you love Buffy— and love isn’t bad—“

“Stop it!” The vampire spits, but he doesn’t deny it. “Whatever I feel for Buffy... it’s not love... it’s something bloody and full of teeth. Just like me.”

“You,” Crowley says, poking the vampire in the chest, “are full of shit.”

He thinks they’re onto whiskey number five now, the way he’s feeling loose limbed, frayed around the edges. He wants to go home. He wants to sit in the back room of the bookshop watching Aziraphale doing something boring with his books. He wants Aziraphale, just beyond touching distance as he always is, but _there_.

 _I cannot abide a world without you in it_ , he thinks, and then, _what if I’m stuck here, what if they can’t get me back._

No. He’s not going to think about that.

“So I suppose you’ve got someone back in your world then, someone you want to go back for, someone you _love_ ,” Spike twists the last word into a snarl, a profanity. 

Crowley considers the bottles of booze on the shelves behind the bar, the different but still shitty music playing on the jukebox, some horrible Pearl Jam imitation. _This is how you remind me of what I really am,_ the singer growls. 

He could be in any crappy bar in the world. 

“Yeah,” he says, and the coaster is whole again under his fingertips.

“Demon? Monster? All-powerful ancient entity?” Spike asks. 

“Something like that,” Crowley drinks the rest of the whiskey, and waves for another. “Angel,” he adds, even though he shouldn’t.

“Angel? Is that name or what? Because let me tell you about Captain Broodypants-“ Spike is swaying a bit now, slurring his words slightly. 

“No, a real angel. Celestial, you know.”

“Real real? With, wings, fluttering robes, going around touching people inappropriately and sitting on Christmas trees?”

Crowley is now deeply regretting being in this bar with this ridiculous vampire. “Wings, yes. Been a while since there’s been robes though.”

“Huh. Never seen an actual angel. So what’s that like? Fucking one? Bet it’s like shagging a featherbed--”

“I could kill you with a snap of my fingers,” Crowley says tiredly. “But it's not like that. We’re not. He’s... like your Buffy. He’s good. Well, mostly good. Sometimes he’s selfish and ridiculous. But...” he shreds the coaster again. “He’s stubborn. Not flexible. Can’t see that things aren’t always black and white.” 

They sit for a while longer in silence. “So, a right pain in the arse,” Spike says. “Sounds familiar.”

“Yeah,” Crowley really _really_ wants to go home now, the ache where his heart would be almost all-consuming. “Do you think they’re ready yet?”

* * *

They’re back at the warehouse. Crowley sobered them both both up when the sun fell and they drove back over, listening to the Sex Pistols ( _Pretty Vacant_ and then _I Wanna Be Your Dog_ ) in the car, Spike yelling along cheerfully, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. He even offers Crowley one, and he smokes it down to the fag end. 

The teenagers are all there, and Giles too. There’s a new circle chalked onto the ground, and Willow has her orb out. There are candles and various piles of occulty substances. 

“This better work,” Crowley growls menacingly at the witch, and she smiles nervously.

“You probably won’t know if it doesn’t,” the one with the bob says cheerfully. Anya, that was her name. “You’ll be obliterated into nothing in the void between dimensions before you can blink,” she adds.

“Reassuring.”

He looks at the circle for a second, then turns to the redhead witch. 

“Witch girl,” he says. “Instead of sending me back. Could you... bring someone else here?”

Crowley imagines for a moment, he and Aziraphale, here in this world, free of, well, everything. 

He sees Buffy’s head whip around, and before Willow can answer, she’s stepping between them. 

“That was not part of the deal,” she says, quietly, but with menace. 

He lets out a humourless laugh. “No, it wasn’t, was it?” 

The air seems to crackle with tension, and then he shrugs, and steps into the circle. Stupid idea, anyway. Aziraphale wouldn’t want it. 

The other witch, the quiet one, closes the circle with a line of salt. This will work. He’ll be back soon. He shuts his eyes and thinks of Aziraphale’s paper-white hair glowing in a streak of sunlight as he sits at his desk, reverently turning the pages of some old book. _Home._

“Well, it’s been a thing, Crowley,” Buffy says, giving him a nod. “And... thank you.”

Crowley gives her a sneer. “I’d say it was my pleasure, but I’d be lying. Don’t summon me again, right?”

“Right,” the girl says. 

The witches begin chanting, the lights in the warehouse flicker, the salt around the circle starts glowing. Crowley can feel... everything... around him stretching. 

Then Spike looks at him with something like realization. “Hey, wait, no, stop,” he says, loudly, furiously, darting forward, but unable to get past the barrier. “Crowley! Mate! You can do anything you want! Snap your fingers, get this chip out of my head! Go on, before you go! Please!”

Crowley grins. “Don’t think so. Being a better person suits you.”

At that Spike’s face is livid, but Crowley is gone. 

Back down the Space Odyssey metaphysical tunnel, until he’s ejected in a tumble of long limbs onto the hard floor of his Mayfair flat. 

He staggers to his feet and is hit by something else again, only this time it’s not the floor but a body. For a moment his brain is too confused and everything is spinning too vertiginously for him to realise that it’s Aziraphale who has him wrapped in a fierce embrace. 

And then he catches up. He buries his face where Aziraphale’s neck meets his shoulder, and breathes in the paper and vanilla and cloud-scent of him (whatever clouds smell like), taking advantage of what is probably going to be a once-in-a-6000-year-lifespan occurrence. 

“Crowley! You disappeared! I couldn’t feel you anymore! I thought you were...” There’s a broken hitch in Aziraphale’s voice and his hands are bunched in Crowley’s jacket and Crowley doesn’t want to let go, ever. 

“Got summoned. Some other dimension. But they sent me back,” Crowley mutters into his neck. “Had to come back.” _For you,_ he doesn’t say. 

“Oh Crowley, I was so worried,” Aziraphale says, then does something almost unthinkable, and plants a clumsy kiss on the side of Crowley’s face. And Crowley can’t help himself but turn his head and brush his lips against Aziraphale’s. He expects Aziraphale to push him away then, but instead, he kisses him back. 

Crowley gently bites Aziraphale’s lower lip, and this really _should_ be the moment when the angel shoves him away and shouts at him. But he doesn’t, he opens his mouth against Crowley’s, and makes a surprised noise as Crowley’s tongue slides along his. And still he doesn’t push Crowley away, instead there’s a hand in Crowley’s hair, pulling him even closer, so they’re pressed against each other. 

That goes on for a bit, and it’s good, really good, as if kissing Aziraphale would be anything other than the best thing in the world. As if kissing the person-shaped-being he’s loved for all this time would be like anything other than coming home. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says finally, insistently, pushing him back slightly so they can look at each other, seaglass eyes meeting sulphur. “I thought you were _gone_ — I didn’t know...” 

Crowley isn’t sure where this is going, hopes it isn’t straight into _oh no we shouldn’t have done that Crowley you evil old tempter,_ because wouldn’t that just be a delightful end to what has been a very strange few days.

”Didn’t know what,” Crowley says, quietly, carefully, trying not to hope. 

“I didn’t know it was you,” Aziraphale says. “That I could feel. All this time.” He puts a hand on his own chest. “You… and your love. I thought it was just what the world felt like. But then you were gone and I missed you and I was so scared and I felt so alone...” He trails off, as if this is a terrible admission, which it is, for both of them. Dangerous. Not just because of heaven and hell and everything, but because he must know there’s no going back from this. 

But he still doesn’t push Crowley away, instead there’s a wobbly hopefulness to his face.

Crowley thinks about what Buffy had said after she’d killed that demon. _Not alone._

He reaches up and hooks his hand around Aziraphale’s neck, pulls him closer so their foreheads are touching. 

“I’ll never leave you, angel. So you’re not alone,” he says. “All right?” A pause, a breath, and Aziraphale’s smile is like the sun coming out. 

And, half to the angel and half to himself, Crowley whispers, ”we are not alone”. 

After that, there’s more kissing, and touching, and Aziraphale dragging him into bedroom with surprising force, and no it’s absolutely nothing like shagging a featherbed. 

And after _that_ Crowley spends an entire day making himself as summoning-proof as he can, as Aziraphale watches and offers ever-so-helpful comments (“I don’t think that’s quite the right sigil, my dear,” and so on). And that turns into a heated argument but ends with more kissing, which is vastly preferable to heated arguments that end with decades of silence.

After all that, though, there is still the small matter of the coming apocalypse, the whole Anti-Christ thing, the culmination of The Great (and terrible) Plan, the looming war between heaven and hell. Time is still running out, and they can’t outrun it, and there’s nowhere else to go, at least not in this reality. 

But. 

At least they don’t have to face it alone.


End file.
